David Dellinger

“We need to think about the future, not the past.”

“Whatever happens to us, however unjustified, will be slight compared to what has happened already to the Vietnamese people, to the Black people in this country, to the criminals with whom we are now spending our days in the Cook County jail.”

“You want us to be like good Germans, supporting the evils of our decade and then when we refused to be good Germans and came to Chicago and demonstrated, now you want us to be like good Jews, going quietly and politely to the concentration camps while you and this court suppress freedom and the truth. And the fact is I am not prepared to do that.”

“Very few people choose war. They choose selfishness and the result was war.”

“The Yippies, their lifestyle is different from mine. But I consider Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman inspired critics of the kind of society that we have.”

“We have become used to the missiles being among us. We don't think about what they can do.”

“I think the myth about the 'silent generation' is just that, a myth.”

“Each of us, individually and nationally, must choose: total love or total war.”

“I received more genuine religious stimulation in prison than in the seminary.”

“The conflict is not between the people and the antiwar movement, but between the people and the government.”

“I do a little of several things like writing, teaching and political organizing, but none of them as well as I would like.”

“The first time I ever came to Washington was to visit Calvin Coolidge in the White House with my father.”

“I went from Yale to jail, and got a good education in both places.”

“Living among society's outcasts and experiencing the brutality of America's prison system did more to set (or confirm) the direction of my adult life than living at Yale.”

“We have to face up to the fact that five administrations have lied to us about Vietnam.”

“We can vote our hearts and our heads for someone who can win, Bernie Sanders.”

“It's my perception that more people are actively committed to human familyhood today, and to a holistic relationship with the natural universe, than at any other time in my 71 years.”

“Dostoyevsky was an influence - what's his name, the saintly priest in 'The Brothers Karamazov,' Father Zossima... 'Kiss the earth,' he'd say. Love everything.”

“Bernie Sanders is our Jesse Jackson only more so.”

“I enjoy life this way, I enjoy life being in solidarity with the people who are fighting for a better world.”